Case Study: Reebok – The Butt Revolution

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Reebok is an American-inspired, global brand that creates and markets sports and lifestyle products built upon a strong heritage and authenticity in sports, fitness and women’s categories. The brand is committed to designing products and marketing programs that reflect creativity and the desire to constantly challenge the status quo.

Executive Summary

Originally set out to target and engage the girls on Facebook and position Reebok EasyTone on a difficult plank that Indian females could engage with. Despite of that, through right conversations and positioning, the Butt Revolutions not only met the campaign and business objectives, but did it with flying colors. The EasyTone campaign changed the way Reebok looked at digital marketing. From thereon, Digital is a key part of every marketing campaign of Reebok. Not only did the EasyTone campaign led to awareness, positive perception and engagement, it also had a positive impact on sales. The e-commerce portal witnessed a spurt in sales of EasyTone footwear during the campaign period. The campaign also created talk points for the brand outside of the digital space through PR and other activations. EasyTone campaign was one of the best planned and executed campaigns of Reebok leading to loads of consumer delight and engagement.

Nature of the programme/ activity/ campaign

Business to consumer

Duration of the said programme/ activity/ campaign. Start date-end date

6 May, 2010 – 5 June 2010

Background

EasyTone is one of the innovative products from Reebok. Being the only footwear that allows women to tone with every step they take. While activating women consumers on internet the biggest challenge was that we were aiming for a mindset change in women and to look at sports footwear differently

Objectives

The objective of the campaign was to position Reebok EasyTone among the key clusters and drive relevant WOM and awareness by engaging the target audience and drive purchase consideration for Reebok Easytone range of Shoes

Strategy and Planning

In cognizance of the fact that the female population on the internet is on a lower side, there was a need to plan the campaign accordingly in order to avoid spillage. The challenge was that within the minimal budget, there was a need to create impact and reach out to the TG with the objective of driving awareness and creating buzz around the launch of Reebok Easytone in the market. With this Campaign, we went beyond buying media on the web. The idea was to introduce something new and exciting that users can engage in and have fun such that the brand remains unobtrusive and yet we manage to communicate the key messages. Media Strategy was to make a platform which was highly targeted & drive high engagement with an exclusivity angle to make the campaign viral .Unlike going for a microsite route, Owned platform of facebook was created to drive a direct connect with the core proposition of toning butts, we coined the terminology “The butt revolution”.

Stakeholders

Reebok wanted to launch Reebok Easytone shoe in the market which was targeted to Females SEC A primarily in the age group of 18 – 24 Years. The affinity of Females in Social Networking was very high which led us to base the campaign on Social Media.

Choice of channel/s

This campaign was activated on Facebook. The name of the channel was Reebok India

Implementation

To ensure reach and impact for the brand, we came up with a solution to make a platform and drive relevant engagement with the audience augmented with the exclusivity angle. We did a campaign called Butt Revolution which had the direct connect with the product proposition of body toning. We created a Facebook application with features like Toned Messaging Service (TMS): which were coded messages which only females could see. This reflected on the walls as a series of pictures of toned butts and legs which created both hype and curiosity for the activity and created a good viral effect. Other features were Groove it Up (upload their butt shaking video which is left for the users to rate), Ask the experts and Jiggle Alerts. Using FB page as lever, there were different points of engagement made available. User looking for fun could engage with the TMS – Toned Messaging Service – a radical and fun concept which merged the product benefit with a fun social media tool brilliantly. If looking for fitness advice they could connect with Reebok experts and get response within 24 hours. User looking to win easytone could upload a video imitating the TVC On Mass media, took targeted properties like Yahoo messenger and Logout banner which created impact and was targeted to our female TG only. The users were directed to the Facebook application page only.

Impact and Outcome

An optimum selection of targeted properties across relevant genres like email, chat and social media delivered maximum relevant reach. The campaign led to a fan base of 40,000 in 2 weeks with 90% users being Women which was the end objective. Within the Target group 120,675 TMS messages were shared. 4,000 Butt videos uploaded, 3000 fitness queries asked 4000 people subscribed for Jiggle alerts Effectiveness- 40000 active fans on FB page in 2 weeks Campaign not only led to awareness & positive perception but also led to 12 Fold Increase in the sales. Client speak EasyTone campaign was one of the best planned & executed campaigns of Reebok leading to consumer delight and engagement

Learnings

This campaign was a first for Reebok in Many ways: This was the first time when we did not make any microsite for Reebok but tried to get the consumers hooked on to the Reebok Facebook page for continuous interaction and engagement with the brand. Secondly, this campaign broke the myth that females are passive internet users who stay away from participating in engagement activities on Internet especially when there is personal data (Butt Shaking Videos in this case) to be shared.

What next

As the page was made for the main brand Reebok, all the subsequent campaign for Reebok are being plugged into the same page with fans increasing day by day. As of now, there are more than ONE MILLION fans which is a measure of the success and the affinity of Reebok with the Fans which has made this page so successful.

Testimonials

EasyTone campaign was one of the best planned & executed campaigns of Reebok leading to consumer delight and engagement – Kanika Mittal Brand Manager, Reebok